Blindsided
by Suite Sambo
Summary: Severus Snape is in the right place when Hermione's blind date stands her up. Written for the 2013 Anti-Valentine's Day Fest for the Severus Sighs Community on Insane Journal to prompt 3: An ad in the Daily Prophet.


**Disclaimer:** This is a work of fiction. The characters and their worlds belong to their original writers and no copyright infringement or offense is intended. No money was made from this story.

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_This story was written for the 2013 Anit-Valentine's Day Fest in the Severus Signs Community on Insane Journal to Prompt 3: A personal ad in the Daily Prophet - Non-con dating situation from a well-meaning friend/potential lover? Wishful hope for finding a partner only to wind up on a date with..._

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Dark chocolate amaretto truffle with raspberry reduction, crowned with hazelnut cream and striped with flaming caramel.

Hooch had been raving and raving about it in the staffroom.

She didn't know – couldn't know – of his weakness for dark chocolate. How he was practically salivating imagining it topped with amaretto, raspberry, hazelnut and caramel.

He'd thought about it all week. Visions of the decadent sweet had filled his brain as he sat through his meeting with the Board of Governors. He half-imagined his staff with hazelnut cream hairdos. He drizzled honey on his breakfast oatmeal and pretended it was flaming caramel.

He had to taste it so he could get on with day to day life.

So here it was, February 15th mind you, _not_ Valentine's Day, and the restaurant was so full of sniveling lovebirds that there were no tables available and the wait for those unfortunate enough _not_ to have called in a reservation was well over two hours.

He sat down in the vestibule, pondering his next move, when one of the hostesses approached him.

"I'm sorry, Sir. Are you the blind date?" She smiled at him knowingly.

Blind date? He stared at the woman in confusion.

"She said to look for a distinguished older man with longer hair and very formal clothing."

Distinguished older man?

Ah. The knut dropped. This was his ticket for a table.

He stood up and affected an air of nervousness.

"Why yes, in fact. Thank you." He smiled crookedly.

"Oh, it will be just fine. She's just as nervous as you are, really. It's so romantic, isn't it, you two on a blind date at your age!"

He wondered for a moment just how old his mysterious dinner partner was.

"And she's attractive too, and so put-together. You do like red wine, don't you? She's already ordered a bottle."

Severus followed the chatty girl into the Muggle London restaurant, sidling between tables filled with lovebirds of every ilk. Men with women. Women with women. Men with men. Old people. Young people. Most of them with eyes only for the other. It was…off-putting. At nearly seventy, he was so comfortable in his solitude that he had long since ceased thinking of himself as anything other than a complete unit unto himself. He did not have a missing half. He did not want companionship. He did not need anything, or anyone. He was perfectly happy to retire to his quarters at eight o'clock every evening, spend two hours on his research, and slide between the sheets of his four-poster by ten fifteen.

"Here he is!" The hostess stopped beside a table where a woman was seated by herself. Her back was to him, but she turned her head to greet him.

She seemed surprised. Of course. But then relief washed over her face.

"Pro…Why, hello, Severus."

"Mrs…Hermione." He stumbled over the name, but held out his hand and shook hers while the pleased hostess disappeared. He quickly sat and opened his mouth, ready with an explanation.

"You can't imagine how relieved I am to see you! What are you doing here, anyway? Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is when your blind date stands you up?"

"No. Not at all." He reached for the glass of red wine she had already poured for her date. "I do not date. Blind or otherwise."

"Ron's feeling guilty now that he's seeing someone. He just doesn't understand that I don't mind being alone." She laughed and shook her head. "He's never been alone. Do you know he's been living with his parents since the divorce? You do know that we're divorced now, don't you?"

"Oh Merlin, yes," he said, taking another long drink of wine and hoping that the promised dessert was worth this. Then, realizing his admission probably did not sound comforting, he placed his glass down on the table precisely where she had first placed it and looked at Hermione. "I mean, of course, that it was quite the topic of conversation at Hogwarts last term."

Hermione swirled her glass. "Well, that's comforting," she said.

"If I wasn't aware of your current marital status, I might have been more taken aback that I was mistaken by the hostess for your blind date."

Hermione gave him a wan smile and refilled her wine. "So that's how you ended up at my table," she said. She glanced around. It was obvious to both of them that the restaurant was not the kind of establishment Severus Snape frequented. It was noisy, crowded and modern.

"What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I came for the chocolate amaretto truffle," he admitted, looking around at the other couples uncomfortably. "I did not realize…the date…." He folded his napkin in his lap, flustered. "There was a wait. A lengthy one."

He looked at her apologetically. "How did this…" and here he swept his gaze around the restaurant… "transpire?"

"Personal ad," she said with a sigh. "Ron and Harry wrote it up. Thank Merlin Ginny looked it over or who knows what it would have said." She gave another one of those resigned smiles. "They think they're helping, they really do. So I agreed to one date. One." She shook her head, her smile for her friend and ex-husband indulgent. "We all went over the respondents and they chose one and we settled on the place and time. He should have been here thirty minutes ago."

"Perhaps he's been detained…."

She reached across the table and laid a warm hand on his. "You're staying right here. This is infinitely better – two old friends having dinner together."

He wanted to point out that they were hardly "old friends" but the waitress arrived just then with their menus.

They studied them quietly for a few minutes.

"I read your article in _Potions Quarterly_ last month," said Hermione, turning a page in her menu. "It was brilliant, really. You'll have a cure for Lycanthropy before the decade is out."

Severus looked up. Hermione Granger-Weasley (or had she dropped the Weasley now, all things considered?) was looking at him expectantly.

"We are getting closer," he said. "Though I do not necessarily share your optimism regarding a cure. It is fortunate, however, that we have so many subjects who have volunteered to test new potions."

"And unfortunate that there are so many available to volunteer," she added.

"It is a double-edged sword," Severus replied.

They ordered dinner and the conversation moved into other areas. Severus found conversing both easy and stimulating with his unexpected date. Hermione had mellowed with age and had given up on her impossible causes to settle for attainable, realistic, yet still altruistic goals. She and her ex-husband had produced two of the brightest children that had gone through Hogwarts in all of Severus' years teaching, had started a charitable foundation with their childhood friend Harry Potter, and had managed to remain friends after their divorce. She was even more intelligent than he had remembered, less bossy and her ideals, while lofty, were well-founded. He had every expectation, as they finished their meals and ordered coffee and dessert, that he was dining with a future Minister of Magic.

"What about you, Severus? Do you ever think about finding someone?"

No. Decidedly not.

Except…except on the occasional cold winter night when the warming charm didn't quite warm the bed and the sheets were cold and the only way to get warm was to curl into a ball in the middle of the mattress. Or when he opened the morning paper to read the obituary of yet another of his old Hogwarts professors. Or when Neville Longbottom's young grandson toddled along behind him in the greenhouses and Neville, still strong and lithe himself, stooped down to scoop the little boy up and deposit him on his broad shoulders. Or when he'd attended Albus Severus' wedding last autumn, had watched the young couple twirling around the dance floor. Had watched Harry and Ginny dancing cheek to cheek, still comfortable, still together, still in love.

She was looking at him, waiting for an answer, so he shrugged indifferently. "No. I'm afraid I'm quite a confirmed bachelor," he said. "There's no room in my busy life for a partner."

"Well, I'm through taking care of people," said Hermione. "And I'm tired of being needed. I'm so glad it was you tonight, Severus."

The chocolate amaretto raspberry hazelnut caramel truffle was better than sex.

Or so he thought. It _had_ indeed been a very long time….

Hermione indulged as well. And when Severus reached across the table with his serviette to wipe a spot of cream off her lip, she blushed, and he mumbled something about messy desserts with excessive toppings.

They walked together to the door. He didn't help her with her coat – she was too quick for him and had it on before he was on his feet.

"I'm taking the tube home," she said. She lowered her voice. "You'll be Apparating, I'm sure?"

He nodded. It was cold outside, but he didn't mind. It was somehow warmer here in her presence.

"Then I'll be on my way." She leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, not quite on his cheek, not quite on his lips. "It was lovely spending the evening with you, Severus."

"Likewise," he said.

She smiled and turned and hurried away toward the Underground station and he stood there, growing colder without her warm smile, for just a minute, until he could no longer see her winter white coat, then he shrugged, and turned, and headed toward the alley to Apparate home. Home to Hogwarts, and to his wide four poster bed with the winter white sheets and the slight depression just left of middle where he would sleep tonight, and every night. Independent. Self-sufficient.

Alone.

_Fin_


End file.
